The 6 Most Twisted Romances in Videogame History

The Caped Crusader and the Clown Prince of Crime have always had this kind of Pam and Jim, will they/won't they thing going on. In Batman: Arkham Origins, we see Batman and The Joker meet each other for the first time. Following a beatdown and incarceration, The Joker admits to love at first sight while talking to his therapist (a pre-villainous Harleen Quinzel). He says he "met someone special and it's changed everything," and that he found "someone he can relate to." You know, the types of things you say about people you want to bring to a middle school dance. Arkham City takes place years later, and the infatuation has only grown, culminating in the creepiest voicemail ever recorded.

But it's not just a one-way obsession. At the end of Arkham City, Batman is faced with the death of his beloved Talia Al Ghul, killed in cold blood by a cackling Joker. Even after that, Batman is still willing to save his arch enemy's life with a poison antidote. The Dark Knight is in love with his own moral code, and nothing encapsulates this ethic more than the fact that he lets The Joker live (and keep murdering people). When the dust settles on the final battle, Batman's nemesis is dead, but it's not Talia's lifeless body that Batman brings out of the rubble in a march of mourning -- it's The Joker's. Commissioner Gordon might want to chew on that one the next time he reaches for the big red phone.

2. The incestuous cannibals of Viva Pinata

Viva Pinata is like The Sims meets Pokemon. You take care of a garden, cultivating an ecosystem of colorful critters with names like Doenut and Chewnicorn, pledging never to say those words aloud near your loved ones. Part of the game is about breeding, achieving specific conditions that let your pinatas mate. Both the mating dance and sperm-to-egg minigame are weird but ultimately harmless E-rated fun. Until the little bundle of joy grows up.

Pinatas have no set gender, and unless you give them a funny hat or name them Nougatlas Cage, there's no way to tell the difference between two pinatas of the same type. As a result, it's common pinata practice to mate siblings together, children with parents, grandparents with grandchildren. Before you know it, you're drowning in a cross-eyed sea of inbred Fudgehogs. And should something happen to a pinata to make it explode (like numerous whacks of your own shovel), any pinata is happy to eat the delicious candy flesh inside, even if it's from their own species. It's a sick and twisted world that Rare created. I really wish they'd make another one.

1. Bowser and whoever had sex with Bowser

Starting in the 90s, the Koopa Kids made it clear that Bowser had baby mamas all over town. It's tough to dispute that Lemmy Koopa and Ludwig von Koopa are brothers from different mothers. Since then, Nintendo cleaned up Bowser's rep, stating that all of the Koopalings are adopted, save one undeniable exception: Bowser Jr.

Whoever did the dirty with Bowser carried his child to term and then dumped BJ in front of the castle, never to be seen again. Not only does this mystery gal have the lowest standards in the Mushroom Kingdom, but she also thought it was best to leave her child with the most well-known villain in all of video games. Because he was raised by his prolific pop, Bowser Jr. has taken to kidnapping Princess Peach (who, to be fair, could probably be kidnapped by Glass Joe).

In the context of Bowser Jr.'s missing mom, Peach's constant abductions take on a new light. What if all Bowser wants is a mother figure to redeem his wretched spawn? It would explain why, in Super Mario Sunshine, Bowser Jr. is fooled by his father into thinking that his scaly fetus developed inside the Princess' peachy womb. Video game scholars have long speculated about this plot point, but progress has stagnated for years, mostly because nobody wants to replay Super Mario Sunshine.